Sharmistha Gooptu is a historian

Pavan K Varma, a retired Indian Foreign Service officer and former national spokesperson of Janata Dal-United, is also the author of, among other titles, Adi Shankaracharya: Hinduism’s Greatest Thinker

Maalan Narayanan is a Chennai-based journalist

Rahul Bhattacharya is the author of Pundits from Pakistan and The Sly Company of People Who Care

Unni R is an author and a screenwriter. His new anthology of short stories, Malayali Memorial, will be published by Penguin in 2023

Karan Mahajan is a novelist and essayist. His novel The Association of Small Bombs was nominated for National Book Award, 2016